Relaunch of Mozilla Firefox’s visit share in the European countries at the end of 2007

After a period of stabilization from June to September 2007, Mozilla Firefox’s visit share, for the average of European countries of the XiTi perimeter, is again growing at the end of the year. Thus, over a one year vision, it gains 5 points in order to reach 28% in December 2007.

Perimeter:

Study conducted from December 1 to 31, 2007

Perimeter of 112,018 websites

European trend: after a stabilization phase, Mozilla Firefox ended 2007 by a new advance…

Mozilla Firefox’s visit share for the average of European countries of the XiTi perimeter increased by 5 points between December 2006 and December 2007.

After an increase from March to June 2007, the share of the free browser stabilises itself until September and even records a drop in October to finally picking up over the last month of 2007.

Thus, Mozilla Firefox’s use share, on average for a European country, is 28% in December 2007, i.e. +0.7 points compared with November 2007:

Between November and December 2007, Mozilla Firefox’s visit share increases in 90% of the European countries studied, Finland still in the lead

Over the totality of the European countries from XiTi’s perimeter, Mozilla Firefox’s use rate shows an evolution of +2% between November (27.3%) and December 2007 (28%).

Estonia allows itself the greatest increase in points: from 35.4% in November to 37.3% in December 2007 (+2 points), followed by Slovenia (+1.6 points). Among the 32 countries studied, only 3 see Mozilla Firefox’s visit share decrease and in relatively minimal proportions: Denmark (-0.6 points), Ukraine (-0.3 points) and the Netherlands (-0.1 points). These last two countries are also those where Mozilla Firefox’s visit share is the lowest in Europe for December 2007.

Mozilla Firefox’s use rate in France (25.8%) remains lower to that of Europe, like that of Spain (21.5%).

… whereas Internet Explorer loses again a bit of ground in December 2007

Thus, the average visit share of a European country for the leading browser is 66.1% in December vs. 66.9% in November 2007. Which represents, however, 2.4 times more visits than its challenger.

Opera, 3rd browser the most used on average for the European countries of the XiTi perimeter with a visit share of 3.3% in December, shows an increase of 5% compared with November 2007.

Safari (2%) also in slight increase and Netscape (0.5%) follow.

Lets now analyze the browser war between the latest versions of Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox…

Less than half of Internet Explorer’s visits are done via IE7, vs. 93% for Firefox 2 within Mozilla Firefox

The graph below, presenting the visit shares of Firefox 2 and Internet Explorer 7 relative to their respective families, makes it possible to analyze the place that the new versions of the two flagship browsers have taken within their overall visits.

On average for a European country, whereas FF2 generated 93% of the Mozilla Firefox visits in December 2007, IE7 only generates 46% of the Internet Explorer visits. A little more than a year after its official launch, Firefox 2 is thus adopted by a very large majority of users of the Mozilla family whereas Internet Explorer 7 has clearly more difficulty convincing faced with the former IE versions.

Worldwide trend: Mozilla Firefox’s growth is more marked in Oceania than in Europe

Mozilla Firefox’s average visit share in Oceania goes from 29.7% in November to 31.1% in December 2007, i.e. +5% (vs. +2% in Europe).

The browser gains, moreover, ground on all the continents. North America reaches 21% and South America records in December its greatest rise: 20.2% in visit share for Mozilla Firefox vs. 19% the previous month (+7%). The use rate in Africa and Asia respectively gains 0.6 and 0.4 points.

Mozilla Firefox’s average visit share in Europe, after a stabilization phase, grows again in December 2007 in order to reach 28%.

A few months before the official release of Firefox version 3, the adoption of Firefox 2 by its family is clearly confirmed whereas Internet Explorer 7 still struggles to convince…

Methodology:

Mozilla Firefox’s use rate corresponds to the totality of Mozilla Firefox’s visits during the period studied in relation to the entirety of visits, all browsers taken together. The same applies for the visit shares of the other families of browsers (totality of visits of the browser considered in relation to the entirety of the visits of all the browser taken together).

The visit shares of Firefox 2 and Internet Explorer 7 correspond to the visits made by these two browsers in comparison to the entirety of their respective families’ visits, on average for a European country.

The indicator of a continent is meant to be, in this study, representative of the countries audited that form it. This indicator is an average of the indicators of the countries. Thus, the behaviour of a country that generates few visits intervenes fairly in the behaviour of its continent.